Homo sapiens

Star River Year 2, August 27th.

Oceania, southeastern Kangaroo Country.

This is the local core agricultural area, with wheat, cotton, and sheep pasture all highly concentrated in this area.

The climate types here are mainly Mediterranean climate, temperate oceanic climate, subtropical monsoon climate, and subtropical grassland climate.

Core cities including Sydney and Canberra are also in the region.

It can be seen that the local climate is relatively suitable for human life.

However, the Kangaroo Country is in an extremely dry state at this time. As the core agricultural area and human settlement area, the southeastern region has not rained for more than half a year.

If the southeast can still rely on groundwater for support for a while, the Great Artesian Basin in the middle will be completely dry by now.

Even if we continue to drill deep wells, there is still no way to alleviate the local drought.

A freshwater lake in the Great Artesian Basin. At this time, only the cracked lake bottom is left, and some weeds have grown tenaciously using the silt on the lake bottom.

More than a dozen surrounding ranches had to urgently apply to dig water wells.

Although the Kangaroo State has strict regulations that do not allow pastures and farms to dig water wells at will, especially machine-driven wells, in the face of the current widespread drought, only temporary well digging permits can be issued.

Old David, the rancher of David Ranch, was not too happy when he looked at the groundwater emerging from the well.

Instead, there was lingering sadness on his face.

Because the temperature at this time was very low, only minus 11 degrees Celsius, and the latitude of his pasture was near 37 degrees south latitude. In previous years, there were no such low temperatures during the same period.

This ultra-low temperature has caused the grass in the pasture to stop growing, and even suffered from low temperature freeze damage.

Low temperature and drought have become common conditions in the southern part of the Great Artesian Basin.

In order to ensure that the sheep, which had just been shaved in autumn, could survive the cold winter safely, Old David had to keep the sheep indoors and turn on the heater for more than three months.

"Father! This is this month's electricity bill." Little David came to Old David holding a bill that was mailed.

Old David glanced at the bill, his face extremely painful.

"Father, if this continues, we will go bankrupt."

Of course old David knew that if he continued like this, he would take jujube pills.

They raise a total of 8,000 sheep in the pasture. In normal winter, the temperature is below freezing for only one or two weeks. Now it has been more than three months, and the temperature has been below freezing, which means that they have been heating for more than three months.

Heating electricity bills have increased 4 to 5 times compared to last year. Even if Kangaroo Country officially subsidizes part of it, the electricity bills still increase by about 3.7 times.

In addition, a more serious problem is that the pasture itself has insufficient forage supply, and a large amount of hay and feed must be purchased from external sources to fill the gap in the pasture's self-produced forage.

This adds another expense.

In addition, the cost of drilling the well must be borne by the rancher himself.

What’s even more embarrassing is that although sheep can withstand low temperatures of minus 15 degrees Celsius, they must be kept in captivity and fed feed in an environment of 5 to minus 15 degrees Celsius, and low temperatures will cause them to grow slowly and reduce wool production.

This year Kangaroo Country has 67 million sheep, and its production capacity is not expected to exceed 220 million kilograms.

House seemingly endless rain.

Due to the severe fragmentation of the global market, global wool demand has been divided into two.

The artificial wool produced by Homo Sapiens is not only self-sufficient, but can also be exported in large quantities.

This results in Kangaroo Country’s wool being sold only to the free world, even though Seris in the free world is the world’s largest wool importing region. In previous years, 70 to 80% of Kangaroo Country’s wool was sold to Seris companies.

The problem is that Siris' wool demand is based on foreign trade demand.

Now that the global market is split in two, there is clearly not enough demand for wool in the free world.

The insufficient demand for wool products has led to insufficient demand for wool raw materials. As a result, the price of wool raw materials will naturally not rise.

Production costs have increased and production capacity has decreased, but sales prices are still falling. This is a dead end for many sheep farms.

Sheep are not grown in wheat. There is no way to plant less this year and expand production next year.

Once the number of sheep decreases on a large scale, it will take several years, or even more than ten years, to restore the scale of breeding in the future.

And there is another problem here, that is, the farms can raise less animals, but the depreciation of the infrastructure and some electricity bills will not be reduced.

If there is a problem only in the sheep industry, then Kangaroo Country can rely on the support of America's father to survive.

But now it is not just a problem for the sheep industry, but also for grapes, wheat, barley and pasture.

As the core agricultural area, the southeast has been affected by drought and low temperature, and grain output is declining significantly.

Many things often affect the whole body.

The reduction in grain production will inevitably lead to a surge in the prices of feed, vegetable oil, and sugar. The surge in feed prices will further increase the production costs of the breeding industry.

The population of Kangaroo Country is small, only about 27 million.

But the high income and low prices of the past have made many people accustomed to that kind of beautiful life.

Now that the unemployment rate continues to rise and prices can hardly be suppressed, problems are beginning to emerge.

The operating rates of various industries are seriously insufficient, and many small farmers and ranches have fallen into a crisis of bankruptcy.

The entire area of ​​Oceania is indeed very large, but excluding deserts, Gobi deserts, and some tropical rainforests, the remaining areas that can be developed are actually coastal areas and the Great Artesian Basin.

Currently, the mid-latitude coastal areas in the south are basically in a low-temperature and drought state, while the savannahs and tropical rainforests in the north have seen much more rainfall than in previous years.

The rain falls where it shouldn't.

The result is that dry places become increasingly drier; wet places become flooded.

ABCD and a dozen large local agricultural companies in Kangaroo Country are facing a very difficult problem at this time.

Sydney.

Bunge branch building.

Garred, the manager in charge of Bunge's Oceania branch, had a very solemn face after receiving the grain storage inventory report: "There are only 2.47 million tons of feed reserves left, less than one-third of the same period last year. This..."

Assistant manager Anthony said with a headache: "Gared, it's not a problem of inventory, but a problem of cost."

"What is the headquarters doing? Why aren't we allowed to increase prices? Do we want us to continue selling at low prices?" Jiarid said with a dark face.

Anthony was very helpless: "I have communicated with the headquarters several times. The headquarters is under pressure from the board of directors and cannot increase prices arbitrarily now."

"Shet!" Garred cursed secretly.

Obviously, the high welfare of the Homo Sapiens Company requires that the entire free world must fully follow up, otherwise it will surrender to the Homo Sapiens Company.

Some time ago, the four major forces in the free world joined forces to suppress the soaring prices of grain, vegetables and fruits, which was a manifestation of riding a tiger with difficulty.

If the current high welfare cannot be maintained, the free world will have no appeal.

Originally, they were inferior to the Homo sapiens company in many aspects, but now they can't even maintain the superficial high wages and low prices. Why should ordinary people stay and serve?

Once high wages and low prices cannot be maintained, the free world will collapse on its own.

Therefore, the four major forces are desperately trying to lower the prices of food, vegetables and fruits. However, how long this pressure can last is still unknown.

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